At ceremonies across NYU’s schools, graduates draped keffiyehs over their robes in protest of the university’s yearslong crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech. In response, administrators barred demonstrators from participating in commencement festivities and reportedly removed some graduates’ keffiyehs by force, targeting attendees in a seemingly arbitrary manner.

Protests against Israel’s siege in Gaza have been a tradition at graduation ceremonies since 2024. This year, school-based commencements featured videos with graduation speakers’ statements instead of live speeches, after NYU faced nationwide backlash for its response to a Gallatin graduate’s pro-Palestinian remarks last May. The university also barred non-academic regalia across all ceremonies — a policy students said is new this year. 

University spokesperson Wiley Norvell told WSN that NYU’s policies for graduating students’ attire and conduct are “content-neutral” and “fully compliant with applicable law.” 

“Our graduates and their families deserve ceremonies that celebrate their special achievements. These are shared rites of passage,” Norvell said in a statement to WSN. “Everyone at the university and across the schools has worked hard to make them uplifting, inclusive and respectful, and to ensure they can be enjoyed without disruption.” 

Tisch

Tisch graduates criticized the decision to remove footage depicting student representatives wearing keffiyehs from a livestream of their ceremony, held at Radio City Music Hall on May 15.   

At the event, banner bearers — graduating students who led their department in walking across the stage — each accepted ceremonial diplomas on behalf of their class. When Chase Dodge, the NYU Game Center’s banner bearer who wore a keffiyeh, walked across the stage and received the symbolic degree, the livestream cut to a wide angle shot just as they passed by the camera. 

In an email addressed to Tisch administrators, Dodge said they were previously told graduates could wear unsanctioned clothing “so long as it’s not hate symbols or hate speech.” Dodge told WSN that on the morning of the ceremony, a Tisch representative said their keffiyeh violated the school’s updated policy. 

According to a May 12 email obtained by WSN, graduating students were prohibited from bringing items including “banners, signs, posters, flyers and flags” to the ceremony. They were allowed to wear “official university academic regalia,” religious attire and compliantly decorated graduation caps. 

“I don’t see scarfs on the prohibited list,” Dodge wrote to Tisch leadership. “The reason that we were cut for ‘not wearing sanctioned items’ is a blatant lie. Grads wearing leis weren’t cut, grads wearing cultural stoles weren’t cut, grads wearing cords of their own design weren’t cut but grads wearing keffiyehs were.” 

Graduates told WSN that although the livestream omitted close-up shots of banner bearers wearing keffiyehs, it included shots of other graduating students wearing keffiyehs as they walked across the stage.   

Tsui-Chu Wang said when they arrived at Radio City Music Hall with a keffiyeh, an NYU representative forced them to surrender the scarf before going inside, ensuring they could retrieve it later. However, once inside, Wang was surprised to find other graduates wearing keffiyehs.  

“I wonder how they got in, or if there’s a strengthening of the censorship at the door after they see a few people inside,” Wang said in an interview with WSN. “For the all-university commencement, it was harder for them to enforce certain rules they set for the students. I had my keffiyeh on the bottom of my bag when I went in, and it was OK.”  

Banner bearer Cian Collins told WSN that moments before he was to lead the Virtual Production department across stage, an administrator pulled him aside and forced him to remove his keffiyeh. Collins — who also wore other non-NYU-sanctioned accessories, like a homemade cord — said that another university staff member later indicated that “it was just the keffiyeh that was the problem.”  

Collins said the staff member returned his scarf — brought in “a bag full of keffiyehs, like a fascist Santa Claus” — shortly after, so he wore it while accepting the ceremonial diploma. When he watched the livestream afterwards, he noticed that the video cut to black immediately after he passed by the camera.  

After Tisch graduates walked the stage, watched student performances and heard from speakers, department chairs offered remarks before conferring ceremonial degrees. Ann Pellegrini, chair of the Performance Studies department, applauded  “graduation day speakers going off-script, risking more than they knew but not more than they’re willing to sacrifice” — garnering applause from graduates and audience members. 

“I haven’t had anybody at Tisch dissuade me or discourage me seriously from speaking about this issue, or wearing things that represent talking about that issue,” Collins said. “It all seems to be at an administrative level — which seems to suggest that the administration is deeply out of touch with both their student body and the faculty that they rely on to be the institution that they are.” 

Gallatin 

As thousands gathered at New York City Center on May 13 for the Gallatin School of Individualized Study’s commencement ceremony, security personnel attempted to shield graduates holding Palestinian flags and keffiyehs from audience members’ view.  

At least a dozen graduating students concealed Palestinian flags on the backside of their stoles, flipping them up towards the audience as they crossed the stage. Others pulled out tied keffiyehs from under their violet robes, letting the scarves hang down their backs as they walked. Each time, a security guard rushed to meet the student on the stage and escorted them to the side.

Gallatin graduate Chaya Forman told WSN that before the ceremony, security asked graduating students to remove all pro-Palestinian attire and leave them outside the venue. After several graduates revealed keffiyehs hidden in their gowns as they walked, security guards began checking graduates’ collars as they lined up next to the stage. 

“This was deeply hypocritical, because if you look at photos, or if you watch videos from Gallatin graduation, there are many students who are adorned with non-university regulated apparel,” Forman said. “People should be able to celebrate all parts of your identity, but it was very clear that anything related to Palestine was what was being targeted.” 

Last year, NYU withheld Gallatin graduate speaker Logan Rozos’ diploma after he denounced the “genocide currently occuring in Gaza.” Civil rights organizations joined students, faculty and alumni in criticizing the university’s decision, demanding administrators release Rozos’ diploma. Meanwhile, organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and End Jew Hatred condemned NYU for hosting a speaker with “pure, unchecked Jew-hatred,” calling for disciplinary action against the valedictorian. 

NYU Law

NYU’s chapter of Law Students for Justice in Palestine reported that some graduates were forced to remove their keffiyehs and dispose of them in a trash can before walking the graduation stage at Tuesday’s ceremony.  

In a Friday statement, LSJP said the law school sent graduating students roughly 10 emails about security and attire policies before the event at Madison Square Garden. The policies permitted graduates to wear attire “provided by official student groups” and “worn for religious practices” along their academic regalia, according to the statement. 

An LSJP member and graduate, who requested to remain anonymous out of fear of disciplinary action, said several graduating students explained to security guards and administrators that LSJP — an on-campus organization — provided them with their keffiyehs, or emphasized that the attire was part of their religious practice.  

“Several students were told that they either had to remove their keffiyehs and throw them in a trash bin or be kicked out of Madison Square Garden,” the LSJP member told WSN. “Another student, who shared that they were wearing it for religious purposes, was told they would have to remove it regardless and forced to throw it in a trash bin.” 

The LSJP member said the attire policy’s enforcement was “inconsistent,” as some graduates had to throw their keffiyehs in trash cans while others were told to leave their belongings on a table and retrieve it after the ceremony. The graduating student added that roughly 15 graduates walked the stage while wearing keffiyehs, without facing pushback from administrators. 

“From my understanding, it was completely arbitrary,” the LSJP member said. “This is another example of NYU admin arbitrarily singling out people — who are mostly queer, people of color, Muslims, anti-Zionist Jews — and selectively enforcing these made-up rules.”  

Ahead of the graduation ceremony, students criticized the law school’s selection of former university President John Sexton — who led the development of NYU’s sites in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv — to speak at their commencement. NYU Law graduates also echoed the broader student body’s condemnation of Stern professor Jonathan Haidt, the social psychologist who spoke at the all-university commencement last week. 

Tandon

At the Tandon graduation ceremony on Monday, one graduate “reportedly had her keffiyeh forcibly ripped off” as she walked across the stage, according to a pro-Palestinian student group. 

NYU’s chapter of Students for a Democratic Society raised the alleged incident in a Thursday Instagram post while denouncing “the events that took place across NYU’s 2026 graduation ceremonies.”  

SDS member Ebtesham Ahmed said a “few” Tandon graduates reported the incident after the commencement, held at the Barclays Center. A Reddit post published after the event also gained traction, its author saying they saw a “Tandon grad have a keffiyeh snatched off of her as she walked the stage.”  

“We weren’t able to get our hands on any photographic or video proof yet, so we are looking into that,” Ahmed said in an interview with WSN. “It’s awful that a student had their keffiyeh removed when they have their right to expression, right to free speech, et cetera.”

At the ceremony, Tandon graduates walked along the floor in front of a stage, rather than on the stage itself, pausing momentarily to stand on a podium as their name was called. Ahmed said that because graduating students moved quickly across the ground, “only a couple students noticed” when the graduate’s keffiyeh was forcibly removed. Two attendees told WSN that they did not witness the incident or notice any graduates wearing keffiyehs at Monday’s event. 

Dharma Niles contributed reporting.

Contact Natalie Deoragh, Aashna Miharia and Paige Tang at [email protected].